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Canada News

A Global Envelope Shortage Weighs on Canadian Institutions (thelogic.co) 51

Posted by msmash from the how-about-that dept.
An anonymous reader shares a report: Matt Stockburn already knew paper supplies were running short when the Toronto city clerk's office, where he works as a manager, received a notice from its envelope supplier to expect shipment delays. Long-term disruptions to the pulp and paper industry coupled with more recent supply-chain issues triggered a global shortage of envelopes this year. It was a matter of time before an institution as reliant on paper correspondence as a municipal government would feel the effect. "For the envelopes, it really wasn't until June, when all of a sudden we seemed to be facing some shortages," said Stockburn. For the Toronto clerk's office, a scarcity of #10 windowed envelopes -- standard for business mail -- put its legislative mandate to inform residents about city business that affects them at risk. To meet those obligations, it sends about 14,000 pieces of mail each month. More broadly, the supply shortfall raises questions about why many institutions still rely on snail mail to communicate critical information to the public and clients.
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A Global Envelope Shortage Weighs on Canadian Institutions More

A Global Envelope Shortage Weighs on Canadian Institutions

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  • Security (Score:5, Insightful)

    by smooth wombat ( 796938 ) on Wednesday August 31, 2022 @12:46PM (#62840003) Journal
    More broadly, the supply shortfall raises questions about why many institutions still rely on snail mail to communicate critical information to the public and clients.

    While this is Canada, the same most likely applies to the U.S. as well. As the IRS says, they will never call or email you to say you owe them money. You will receive a written record. It's the official record from the government for you to keep.

    • Time to go electronic. Our tax department also says they will never call or email saying I owe them money. But they do email me to let me know my government account has a message in its inbox that I need to go read. Off I go to the website, log in, and sure enough there's my written correspondence, usually telling me I owe them money.

      • That works for 'pull' but for 'push' from the government, mailing address is the only real credential they have to go off of, since phones and electronic communications are handled by private companies or utilities.

        • really.
          there was a time when one made the envelope, sometimes using the letter itself.
          it is very hard to imagine that there is only one envelope machine
          on this planet
          and that it stands in a building in china.
          how is that competitive edge working for you

          • Yep, I came in to make exactly the same point. Ain't no reason for this bullshit, let alone all envelope manufacturing being regulated to a single point on the planet.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by tlhIngan ( 30335 )

            really.
            there was a time when one made the envelope, sometimes using the letter itself.
            it is very hard to imagine that there is only one envelope machine
            on this planet
            and that it stands in a building in china.
            how is that competitive edge working for you

            The most popular computer of all time is still the Commodore 64. You don't see much of those in use anymore by anyone around - there's probably a few companies still using them, but for the most part, they are being kept by hobbyists for collection, not use. B

        • That works for 'pull' but for 'push' from the government, mailing address is the only real credential they have to go off

          No not at all. Most governments have some unique identifier they can tie to a digital credential. Heck most governments have multiple and efficiency programs largely exist to consolidate them under a single number for different departments.

          Again you say it doesn't work like that, but that is literally how it works in both governments I deal with on a regular basis. A registered online account linked to a unique identifier (e.g. Tax file number), as part of which an email address is given.

          Now the government

      • Not everyone has connectivity or funds to procure the necessary equipment for connectivity.

      • But email is easy to spoof and spam, and is a major problem. I constantly have to tell my mother to never pay money just because something on the internet says she owes them money, and if someone phones here asking for money to please ask for a bill in the mail. And to pay by check also, not with online transactions, so that there's a record (scammers rarely bother with sending paper but any utility, bank, or government office will happily send a bill and accept checks). Especially because she's naive, an

    • I agree, but the real issue with snail mail, is the same that plagues email or fax, it's all just plain text. Email can be incredibly secure with the application of PGP, but our systems aren't setup to work with it, to spite it's nearly 30 years old. If you talk with the IPC in Ontario Canada, they'll tell you to fax sensitive data, instead of email it, because email is plain text, but somehow fax is secure ...? I never really understand that argument, and still don't.

      Society needs to wake up to the fact

      • The one security benefit of fax over email is the fax isn't stored by X intermediaries along the way and isn't stored long term at the destination.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by dskoll ( 99328 )

          You don't actually know what the destination does with your fax. I suspect my bank's fax receiving hardware stores it directly on a hard drive and I also suspect the bank keeps it for years.

        • How do you know? How can you verify a fax isn't copied along the route? What happens when a fax is just sitting on a machine for anyone who wants to read it? What prevents me from reading the fax on the machine, if it was addressed to you? Granted email is essentially no better, at least in terms that it's plain text unless you encrypt it, but fax has absolutely no security benefit.

          • Do you not know how faxes work? They're direct connections over telephony. There is no intermediary service provider needed to forward the fax and retry if it fails.

            • That has nothing to do with someone intercepting the fax and reading it, and that doesn't get into the problem of the fax being plain text once it's delivered. As for being stored long term at the destination, of course fax are stored long term, usually by scanning them into an insecure DB, running on an insecure system in the corner of an office, for everyone in the company to browser all day.

              In Ontario Canada, this is how your medical records are handled and sent, there is absolutely no security at any

      • The real solution to all of this, is to have identity validation, verification, signing, encryption and proper privacy.

        Well, this wouldn't go over well in the US, as that it would call for a National ID.

        While we're dangerously close to it....I don't think this would go over very well.

        With a govt. issues National ID, you'd soon be required to use it to do more and more things in life and then, well...they have control over you.

        You'd probably say good by to good old anonymous cash if it were implemented s

        • I don't think so, because you leave the citizen, or their guardian, in charge of the certificate and certification generation. If the citizen controls the private key, and can change the public key at will, then you leave them in charge and at the same time leave the government out. I would extend this so if someone in the CRA wants to access my tax data, they'd have to request it through me, and have a one time or mult time certification used to unlock it for a period X, that I control, and that would b

    • Or for that matter, how come bureaucrats can't use a double sided printer to print an *address privacy page* to wrap your mail in instead of wasting money on envelopes.

    • While this is Canada, the same most likely applies to the U.S. as well. As the IRS says, they will never call or email you to say you owe them money. You will receive a written record. It's the official record from the government for you to keep.

      That plus, a physical address is generally longer lasting than an email address, and less apt to be faked.

      Email addresses can be created and dropped in seconds, they aren't dependable and can be more readily hijacked than a physical address.

      That isn't even gettin

  • Snail mail still needed (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Bruce66423 ( 1678196 ) on Wednesday August 31, 2022 @12:46PM (#62840005)

    'More broadly, the supply shortfall raises questions about why many institutions still rely on snail mail to communicate critical information to the public and clients.'

    Given the need to mail local residents of an area, the fact that the email addresses of those people will be unknown, just their geographical. Yes, some clients can be emailed, but a letter is more certain to get through - think spam blockers - and if it contains confidential information, the use of email ought to be a no-no.

    'Horses for courses'

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Tablizer ( 95088 )

      Email has been ruined by spammers and scammers. What's needed is an e-stamp-based alternative or enhancement to email. eStamps would fund investigation and enforcement against riff-raff. I'd gladly pay a couple of cents per message for reliable email for important things. The old (existing) system doesn't have to go away.

      Canada, Europe, and democratic Asia could cooperate to devise such a standard. The US is too anti-gov't to bother (although blue states may pitch in).

  • When I think about everything I received in the mail over the last year or so that came in envelopes? I'd say the majority came from lenders or the government.

    I've received such things as the (IMO useless) letters in the mail that inform me I changed my 4 digit PIN on a credit card, as well as more important documents like the notice I have jury duty in a couple of months.

    I feel like most paper I receive in the mail is technically unnecessary. But much of it seems like it's done to confirm "authenticity" mo

    • I still know people who only carry flip phones and who can never figure out why their email stops working.

      I carry a flip phone by choice. When my email stops working it's because my provider has a problem.

    • The overwhelming majority of mail I receive is junk. They are solicitations for me to buy something (I can't recall EVER getting an offer interesting enough to respond to) or "free" crap like "guides" for local businesses, junk "newspapers" chock full of ads, etc. If you scale that up to a neighborhood, a town, a state, a country, a globe, it's just such a horrendous waste of resources.

      For bona fide government communication, why can't they implement an electronic alternative....even if paper is the defaul

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by GoJays ( 1793832 )
        In Canada there is a electronic alternative it's called "my account" on the government site. You can get records of all government communication there. I opted out of hard copy communication via mail years ago because it was such a waste of resources (and I would often misplace them once received). Now I can just login on the site and look at all my records from previous years in one spot, very handy when doing taxes.

  • " More broadly, the supply shortfall raises questions about why many institutions still rely on snail mail to communicate critical information to the public and clients."

    Electronic forms of communication are evanescent, easily hacked, not private, unreliable due to dependence on multiple high tech systems being simultaneously functional, and lacking in the ability to prove anything in court.

    • No they aren't. Some of the ones you have experience with may be. But lumping everything together as "electronic forms of communication" is silly. You can actually say the same thing about all non-registered mail, and the only government agency which ever sends registered mail tends to be an embassy or department of foreign affairs. ... And that is usually because you just ordered a passport.

      Email is a poor forms of communication, but there are plenty of electronic systems which can easily replace the shitt

  • Every time I order some transistors/microcontrollers/resistors off rs-online.com I get up to 5 envelopes per order. Sometimes I'll get 3 envelopes in one go and the remainder of my order a day or two later. I sell a small bit of stuff online and have never had to buy an envelope as I always have enough RS ones to reuse.

    • Funny I've never had more than one envelope from RS per order. Sure they felled an entire forest for the ludicrously oversized box combined with all the packaging material inside for that 0603 component I ordered, but there was only ever one envelope in it containing the packing slip/receipt.

  • Everyone should be provided with a secure, read-only email address for government communications.

  • Your envelope problem. (Score:3)

    by geekmux ( 1040042 ) on Wednesday August 31, 2022 @01:23PM (#62840211)

    The answer is simple. Start taxing the living shit out of those who want to waste envelopes sending junk mail.

    It's about damn time we find a pressing reason to clamp down on this problem. Nothing else really has, and I have no idea why. I don't want or need junk mail, and neither does the overwhelming majority of the planet.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Mal-2 ( 675116 )

      What will that fix? Junk mail comes in a stack of loose leaf pages printed on both sides, with a card on one end carrying the postage and address -- no envelope. There's just a small paper band on the card that wraps around the rest of the stack and sticks back to the card. Or it comes in a folded card, again, no envelope. Further "junk" comes with the free local weekly "newspaper", again without an envelope.

      Charities and others who are actually soliciting donations will include envelopes, because they can'

      • I wouldn't assume that. Maybe that's how it is where you live. Around here I get both kinds - the loose flyers, as well as unaddressed envelopes. It's the mail equivalent of clickbait because it usually states that there's something REALLY, REALLY important inside!! Then you open it and it's some real estate agent or credit card offer or lawn company or driveway pavers.

      • Let me ask you something; should any of that crap mail you receive get a free pass either?

        Tax the living shit out of all junk mail, including the many envelope-riddled ones I receive on a regular basis.

        To clarify, it's more banks pushing that kind of "premium" advertising my way. A decent credit score is like a magnet for that crap I guess.

    • The answer is simple. Start taxing the living shit out of those who want to waste envelopes sending junk mail.

      As usual your "simple" answer is boneheaded and doesn't solve anything. People sending junk mail do not send it using #10 windowed envelopes. Hell the easiest ways of identifying junk mail is the lack of window.

  • Any time you have to send notices to people who live in a certain geographical area, mail makes sense. For example, my city is building light rail infrastructure and they wanted to notify everyone in a certain area about upcoming construction. Sending mail made it possible to notify the correct people without needing to know their names and without having to correlate email addresses with geographical addresses.

    Sending mail is also (contrary to what many here said) more secure than email. Oh sure, an i

    • Yes, but with a modern double-sided office printer, it isn't that hard to create a mail merge report the does not need an envelope for this purpose. Just print the intended destination address on the outside, where you normally would for the window, leave the middle third of the paper blank, fold, staple, stamp and send!

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by slazzy ( 864185 )
        A regular stamp on the mail would be the first (of many) signs it was a scam. Governments use their own printed stamps.

        • Which can be printed on the same printer that the mail merge document is printed on, rather easily. Stamps.com even has an Office 365 plugin for it.

  • Save a tree! Eat a beaver!

  • ...update its communications strategies. Obviously, snail mail is a painfully slow, insecure, & unreliable way to send messages. There are dozens of ways they could do this. If they're smart, they can figure it out. It's long overdue.
  • ...the last time I used an envelope for anything, at home or at work. My roll of "forever" stamps will probably literally last forever.

  • I think the idea of just-in-time shipping and buying is past. If the government, or business, knows it sends out 14K pieces of mail why not order a shit ton of envelopes now? Storage might even be cheaper than dealing with rising prices due to shortages.

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